Scheduling at the Betfred.com World Championship is often a bone of contention, and the order of play has definitely had an influence in the first sessions of today’s semi-finals.
Both Mark Selby and Ali Carter, who were involved in titanic tussles last night, appeared to be feeling the effects of those exertions when they reappeared today and find themselves trailing.
Carter was visibly struggling with fatigue when he lost the first five frames to Neil Robertson, ultimately ending the session 6-2 down, and it was not a top-form Selby that started out against Graeme Dott tonight.
Dott leads 5-3, a surprising scoreline for many people considering the way The Jester despatched Ronnie O’Sullivan.
The Scot’s freshness enabled him to knock in a break of 79 in the opening frame and he subsequently added runs of 70, 48, 50 and 93 to move 5-2 up.
But Selby woke from his slumber just in time to bang in a total clearance of 142 which will boost his morale for when the match resumes tomorrow afternoon.
Still the favourite to lift the trophy on Monday, Masters champion Selby is out to 11/8 with Robertson the 7/4 second favourite and Dott in to 7/2. Carter is the 8/1 outsider.
Selby is 8/13 to reach the final for the second time, with Dott 6/5.
In the morning, Robertson will resume as a 1/5 chance to beat Carter, who is 10/3 to repeat his feat of reaching the 2008 final.
I’ll be back with all the news from the Crucible tomorrow.
Goodnight.
